Sentimental
by Katako-Chan
Summary: There is always a moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. Submission for the NejiTen Childhood Contest on Livejournal.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto in any way.

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**Sentimental**

by Katako-Chan

The poets could have made long, eloquent poems full of beautiful imagery and metaphors to entirely unrelated and silly objects, but they could never fully describe this situation. The Hyuuga elders could use their extensive knowledge of rhetoric and obscure words, but they would never fully encompass the emotions of this predicament. No, only upon descending to the level of ordinary, everyday, middleman vocabulary words could the entire gut-wrenching feeling of this circumstance be related.

Hyuuga Neji was bored.

Yes, he was bored. Absolutely-bored-out-of-his mind-in-a-way-that-was-unbecoming-of-a-Hyuuga-even-a-Branch-member bored. In a way that would make the elders furrow their eyebrows and frown in displeasure and disapproval while the old women of the clan would faint at the serious breach of etiquette. In a way that would make Hiashi-sama angry in public and confused in private. In a way that Hyuuga Neji liked best.

He was slouched in his seat, dark hair spilling over the back like a "silky, watery waterfall," as was the description his already growing fan club had used for it. One finger absently tapped the blank notebook page in front of him, silently, of course, so the teacher wouldn't notice, but tapping all the same. The other hand dangled listlessly at his side, the fingers twitching to his kunai holster every once in a while.

Meanwhile, his mind was busy tuning out Iruka-sensei's words while accumulating a mental list of what better things he could be doing with the seven hours he was required to spend at the Academy each weekday. It wouldn't matter if he didn't catch the lecture, anyways. The Hyuugas, as an elite and highly respected ninja clan, had to maintain their status as such, and naturally, began training their young in the arts of basic ninja skills and perhaps some elementary Jyuuken forms almost as soon as they could walk, regardless of clan position. With the time he was wasting in this banal classroom, Neji could have been practicing his shurikan and kunai throwing, going over the forms of Jyuuken that he knew, working on sharpening his Byakugan, or even helping his mother out with whatever womanly task she needed assistance in.

Oh, yes, Hyuuga Neji so desperately wanted out that he would have swallowed his seven-year-old manly pride to help his mother thread a needle or whatever else his "sharp eyes" could be of use in. But, he supposed, threading a needle and watching his mother embroider (most un-manly), could not be worse than being thrown flirty and desperate giggles by a bunch of girls who had told him, five minutes prior, that he had the most beautiful hair that they had ever seen. _That_ was wounding a man's ego.

But at that moment, Neji was woken from his reverie by pounding footsteps outside the classroom door. A number of students were giving the door curious glances, wondering what sort of emergency had occurred, and Neji discreetly joined in. Iruka paused mid-sentence, before walking over to the door while sound of fumbling with the handle could be heard.

Iruka opened the door with ease and a tumble of brown, pink, and navy fell in. Upon a second glance, Neji realized that the tumble was actually a girl with brown hair falling out of messy twin buns, a pink shirt, navy blue pants and the customary opened-toed sandals.

"I-I-I'm so-sorry, I'm late," the girl gasped, bent over and clutching her side.

"It's quite understandable, but you must take precautions not to be this tardy next time. Tardiness in another situation could mean life or death," Iruka-sensei replied, scribbling a note upon the attendance chart.

If Neji had been a sentimental boy, which he most certainly was not, he would have said later in life that it had been Fate. Instead, he thought it privately at that very moment, and for years after. One could not escape Fate, after all, especially when it walked in the door.

"Well, Tenten, is it? There's an empty seat by Hyuuga Neji."


End file.
